“Gareth?” the Borren woman seated on his left asked as she turned away from a conversation on her other side. “That’s it? No last name.”
“More mysterious that way,” he offered, turning away from the overweight, middle-aged Vanir guy on his right that had wanted to talk about investing in art futures.
Whatever that was.
“I see,” the woman leaned a little closer.
Borren were even taller than Vanir, so it made sense that they would be seated at the same table, itself a foot taller than normal. And Gareth had only seen a few of her type, and only at a distance, and not actually talked to one, so he couldn’t tell her age at a glance.
She wore a headpiece in turquoise that sat on her bald skull like an ancient Chinese temple, as much as he could find words to compare it, looking at her. The species was apparently hairless, with spots bigger than freckles on their pate, as well as interesting color patterns like a giraffe trailing down all the parts of her shoulders, chest, and stomach that were naked flesh.
Which was most of them.
Twin ridges of bone emerged from the sides of the large, flat nose and flared away over the eyes, providing shadows that looked rather like eyebrows. Her eyes were simply huge, at least twice the size of Gareth’s, with the points at the inner bottom and outer top corners of an invisible square.
She wore a dress that seemed to cover her back and encase the long, giraffe-like neck, covering only the tops of her shoulders and her arms down to the wrists. White, flexible, plastic sheets had been wrapped around her thorax like an open-fronted corset, resting on her hip bones and coming up to more or less cover her breasts from the sides.
More or less.
The fleshy top of her belly button was pierced, with a ruby pendant dangling in the hole. And if he was understanding the physics involved, he had to guess that her nipples were pierced as well, connected by a silver or platinum chain, hidden by the open-front corset device, connecting them. Not a question that he sought to answer, thank you kindly.
Gareth cleared his throat, sipped his wine, and concentrated on her face. It was weird, but looking up kept him from looking down. The way she leaned towards him and seemed to flex her long torso didn’t help his state of mind.
“And what do you do, Gareth-with-no-name?” she purred warmly.
Gareth fell back as hard as he could on the training and books. Those had been for this question, but the role-play he had done to get ready had been with fully-clothed agents, many of them men.
This was…
“I’m a writer,” he offered, as blandly as he could. “Mostly magazine work.”
“Anything I’d know?” her gravity seemed to be off, or her balance. She kept easing closer, like a tide coming in.
“All written under a pen name,” he tried to relax. “Fewer enemies that way.”
“You must have friends, to get this invitation,” she smiled easily with soft, blue lips.
“Favors for important people,” Gareth suggested. “And I’ll write this all up tomorrow.”
“And when will it be in print?” she was almost breathing on him now. It was like dating that volleyball player in junior high school, when she had been almost a head taller than him, too.
“Who’s to say,” Gareth shrugged, using that as an opportunity to eke out a little more distance.
If he wasn’t careful, she’d be in his lap very shortly.
Not what Constable Baker had planned for him tonight.
Hopefully.
The steward rescued him, delivering a mixed salad and refreshing the bread bowl. Another one filled water and took drink orders.
Gareth had no idea what the salad was. And didn’t really care. The colors were probably fake anyway, or they grew pink carrots here. Didn’t matter. He used the fork in one hand and a hunk of bread in the other to defend his turf like the Russians at Moscow facing the invaders. Any of them.
The woman seemed more bemused than insulted. The man on Gareth’s other side was still bending the ear of the man on his far side about investment opportunities and tax breaks.
All conversation seemed, of universal volition, to subside for an hour, replaced by the tinkling of knives and folks on plates and glasses being set down loud enough to clunk. Salad was followed by a cold soup that would have been proudly served by any Ukrainian café in the solar system.
Gareth hadn’t ordered the main course. Apparently, that had been handled by whoever got him the invitation. They had selected the beef. He hoped it was beef. Now was not the time to ask. Nor was this the place. The sauce was lavender. And rather sweet/sour in the way of certain Chinese dishes he had encountered in his travels.
Gareth pretended he had a boneless ribeye in a redwine reduction, and attacked it with gusto. And it was close enough, with the occasional sip of red wine and some buttered bread in between bites.
When the stewards removed his plate and filled his coffee cup, Gareth found the woman on his left suddenly much closer than he remembered her chair being before.
“Diệu Ahn,” she introduced herself. “Since we don’t have last names tonight.”
Gareth shivered, but only inside, he hoped. That sounded like too much of an invitation on her part. Letting her hair down, although she didn’t have any, just exquisite, tiny ears and that huge headpiece.
Gareth lifted the coffee cup like it was a shield, holding his left elbow out in such a way as to hopefully keep her at arm’s length. But then the other patrons began to rise and make their way towards the front of the building, from the auditorium at the back where dinner had been served.
Before he was fully standing, Diệu Ahn had her arm wrapped around his.
“I think you’re one of those fashion writers that always goes by a secret identity at these sorts of things,” she murmured down to him. “That or a secret agent. What do you think, Gareth?”
“Something like that,” he replied evenly. It was even true, more or less.
Just not the parts she was expecting.
“Have you seen the entire hall?” she continued, leading him towards a grand flight of stairs he had ignored earlier, when he had been scouting the people more than the terrain.
These steps were more polished white marble, overlaid with a burgundy carpet that bullnosed at each step.
“I have not,” he replied.
Gareth felt like a dog on a leash, or one with his head out the window, as she politely led him up the stairs. That she was at least seven inches taller or more, depending on the heels below that dress, didn’t help. Everything about her was turquoise and white tonight, except her skin, which was too pink to be alabaster, and those freckles, which might cover her entire body in geometric shapes.
Gareth really, REALLY didn’t want to do any math tonight.
The mezzanine was lovely. Gareth regretted not coming up here earlier. The view was perfect to observe all the beautiful people below, while keeping them at a polite and impersonal distance. He and Diệu Ahn shared the balcony with a number of other folks, some he recognized from dinner, and a large number of photographers making their living. Steward with trays came by, and she snagged them both glasses of what Gareth guessed were champagne, from the color and bubbles.
She giggled as they tickled her nose. It was a pretty, girlish, distracting sound that kept Gareth’s attention wandering to places it had no business going.
Pippa. Only Pippa.
At the far end of the hall, the flood gates had apparently been breached. A wave of species poured into the grand hall from the front, those people with second-class tickets to the after-party.
Dinner had been showy and self-congratulatory, as various awards had been given out while everyone chowed down. Now came the grand event. Everyone coming in with the tides had a camera in one hand. Drones were forbidden indoors tonight, and nobody wanted to miss anything.
Diệu Ahn still had her free hand around his elbow. Gareth watched her set her glass down on the wide, marble balustrade and reach inside her corset, thankfully below her breast instead of across it. She did something and withdrew her hand, reaching towards him.
Gareth nearly flinched. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but his mind kept seeing a giant spider in her hand. His nerves were apparently shot.
Instead, she had pulled a business card from in pocket inside the corset-thingee. Rather like his blazer had pockets inside, but his were empty.
She leaned in close and languidly slid her hand inside his blazer, searching for his pocket for several seconds in the wrong places with a smile and a quiet, coquettish giggle. Finally, she dropped the card and withdrew her hand. Gareth’s breath was short.
“Got something for me?” she purred, twisting her torso around a little to make it obvious where he might put such a thing.
Inwardly, he said a small prayer of thanks to Constable Baker. Even accidentally.
“My, uh, boss actually forbid me from carrying any tonight,” Gareth replied dejectedly, at least he hoped it sounded that way. “Under threat of extreme sanction. And she was serious.”
“She?” Diệu Ahn looked interested in a potential rival to battle.
“Complete and total hardass editor,” Gareth freelanced the relationship. It sounded close enough, from what he had seen of newspapers on the video tube. “If I wasn’t bound under a tight contract, I’d shop my services elsewhere.”
Wrong thing to say. Her eyes perked right up.
“Oh,” Diệu Ahn smiled. “Need a good lawyer to help you break a contract? I have several on staff.”
Gareth blinked and remembered his manners.
“It dawns on me that we’ve only talked about my life tonight,” he tried to deflect the statuesque woman. “What do you do, Diệu Ahn?”
She grabbed her glass and sipped, telegraphing a shrug with her entire body in such a way that Gareth kept losing focus on her eyes.
“I’m an art patron,” she said modestly. “I buy, I sell. I collect things that catch my eye.”
That last in a purr that felt like a bear-trap closing.
“I’ll have to remember to call you next week for an interview,” Gareth suggested.
“Call?” Diệu Ahn smiled. “That, too. Nudge, perhaps?”
Gareth smiled and sipped his wine, hoping that he wasn’t beet red right now.
Pippa.
She seemed to sense some of his discomfort and withdrew her fangs, just a little. She tugged at his arm, turning him to the right, where he could see a new gallery through a narrow archway.
“We should enjoy the art,” Diệu Ahn announced in a quiet, authoritative voice. “Broaden our horizons.”
Gareth nodded and read the name of the space over the door. His heart really wanted to stop beating right now. Just keel over and die, but it refused.
Inter-Species Erotica it read in a lovely, Helvetica font. Small enough to be discrete.
In a Grace museum. The sort of place where art exhibits were expected to be interactive.
Gareth’s eyes refused to dwell on it. He was undercover, making contacts which he hoped would lead him to useful places in the underworld. Baker and Grodray had them. His job was start building his own network.
However unsavory that task might turn out to be.
Instead, his focus drifted back to the crowd below. The mad rush was over and people were settling into clusters and currents.
Gareth stopped dead, dragging Diệu Ahn to a halt as well.
“Hey,” he muttered absently.
“What is it, Gareth?” she asked, leaning close and rubbing herself against his side.
“I know those guys,” he said aloud.
Down in the main hall. Morty looked up and locked eyes with him. The Yuudixtl said something that was covered by the noise in the auditorium, but that was okay. Gareth was pretty sure it would have gotten the lizardman’s mouth washed out with soap, were either of their mothers here right now.
Morty turned and nudged Xiomber, the two them talking to a fat Elohynn with a couple of obvious bodyguards.
The frozen tableau held for a moment, and then the two Yuudixtl bolted.